CAMP FOLLOWERS
It was just as Marian was tightening the ropes to the pack on her sled
that, happening to glance away at a distant hill, she was reminded of
Patsy’s latest story of the purple flame. From the crest of that hill
there came a purple flare of light. Quickly as it had come, just so
quickly it vanished, leaving the hill a faint outline against the sky.
“The purple flame,” she breathed. “I wonder if we can leave those
mysterious camp-followers of ours behind?”
On the instant a disturbing thought flashed through her mind. It caused
an indignant flash of color to rise to her cheek.
“I wonder,” she said slowly, “if those mysterious people are spies set by
Bill Scarberry to dog our tracks?”
“They may start with us,” she smiled to herself, as she at last dismissed
the subject from her mind, “but unless they really are Bill Scarberry’s
spies and set to watch us, they’ll never finish with us. Camp-followers
don’t follow over five hundred miles of wild trail. They’re not that fond
of hard marching.”
In this conclusion she was partly wrong.
Just as the sun was painting the distant mountain peaks with a gleam of
gold, the collies began to bark and the broad herd of reindeer moved
slowly forward. Marian and Patsy touched their deer gently with the
reins, and they were away.
It was with a distinct feeling of homesickness that Marian turned to look
back at the campsite. She had spent many happy hours there. Now she was
leaving it, perhaps forever. What was more, she was leaving the tundra;
the broad-stretching deer pastures of the Arctics. Should their
enterprise succeed, she would pass over one of the Canadian trails,
southward to the States and back to the University. Should they fail, she
might indeed return to the tundra, but she knew it could never be the
same to her.
“We must not fail,” she told herself, clenching her hands tight and
staring away at the magnificent panorama which lay before her. “We must
not! Must not fail!”
As she saw the reindeer, a mass of brown and white moving down the slope,
a feeling of sadness swept over her. She had come to love these gentle
and half-wild creatures of the North. She was especially fond of the
sled-deer, her three; the spotted one, the brown one, and the white. Many
hundred miles had she driven them. Nowhere in the world, she was sure,
could there be deer who covered more miles in a day, who were quicker to
recognize the pull of rein, more willing to stomp the tiresome nights
away at the ends of their tethers.
Dearest of all were the three collie dogs; Gold, Copper and Bronze, she
whimsically named them, for their coats were just what their names
indicated. Copper and Bronze were young dogs. Gold was the pick of the
three; an old, well-trained sheep dog. Accustomed to the sunny pastures
of California, he had been brought to this cold and barren land to herd
reindeer. With the sturdy devotion of his kind, he had endured the biting
cold without a whimper, and had gnawed his toes, cut by the crusted snow,
in silence. He had done the work assigned to him with a zeal and
thoroughness that might have shamed many a human master.
“These, too, I must leave,” she told herself. “Worse than that, I am
leading them out into wild desert. Within a week that beautiful herd may
be hopelessly scattered; our sled-deers killed by wolves; our dogs—well,
anyway, they will never desert us. Together we will fight it out to the
bitter end.”
A lump came into her throat. Then, realizing that she was the commander
of this expedition and that it was unbecoming of commanders to betray
emotion, she quickly conquered her feelings and gave herself over to the
work of assisting in keeping the herd moving steadily forward in a
compact mass.
Five days later, with their herd still moving steadily on before them,
and with hopes rising high because of the continued success of their
march, they found themselves crossing a succession of low-lying,
grass-covered hills. As they reached the crest of the highest of these,
and arrived at a place where they could get an unrestricted view of the
tundra that lay beyond, an exclamation escaped Marian’s lips.
“A forest!” she exclaimed.
“A real Arctic forest,” echoed Patsy. “Won’t it be wonderful!”
“Wonderful and dangerous,” Marian replied. “Unless I miss my guess, here
is where our troubles begin. It may not be so bad, though,” she quickly
amended, as she saw the look of fear that came over her cousin’s face.
“That forest is fully ten miles away. The sun is about to set. We’ll
drive our herd down into the tundra where there is plenty of moss. We’ll
camp there, and get up for an early start in the morning. The forest may
be only a narrow belt along a river.”
Marian did not feel very sure that her predictions would prove true, but
she was the sort of person who measures all perils carefully, then hopes
for the best.
Two hours later they were eating a meal of reindeer stew and hot
biscuits, which had been cooked over a willow-wood fire in their Yukon
stove. Then as they chatted of the future, Marian held up a finger for
silence.
“What was that?” she whispered. “A shot?”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, yes. There’s another!”
Marian was up and out of the tent in an instant.
As her eyes swept the horizon they caught a gleam of light from the hills
above, the red and yellow light of a camp-fire.
With one sweeping glance she took in the position of her herd. She had
just noted that a certain brown deer had strayed some distance up the
hill. She was about to suggest to Terogloona, who had also been called
from his tent by the shots, that he send a dog after the deer, when, to
her great astonishment, she caught a flash of light, heard a sharp
report, then saw the brown deer crumple up like an empty sack and drop to
the snow.
For one instant she stood there as if in a trance, then with a quick turn
she said:
“Patsy, you stay with Attatak. Terogloona, you come with me.”
Turning, she walked straight toward the spot where the reindeer had
fallen. The faithful Terogloona, in spite of his fear of the Indians of
the Little Sticks, followed at her heels.
When they arrived at the spot, they found a man bending over the dead
deer. In his hand was the rifle that had sped the bullet. The soft-soled
“muck-lucks” that Marian and Terogloona wore made no sound on the snow.
The man’s back was toward them and they came upon him unobserved. The
powerful Terogloona would have leaped upon his back and thrown him to the
snow, but Marian held him back.
“Stranger,” said the girl, in as steady a voice as she could, “why did
you kill our deer?”
Like a flash the man gripped his rifle as he wheeled about. Then, seeing
it was a girl who spoke, he lowered his weapon.
Marian’s eyes took him in with one feeling glance. His face was haggard,
emaciated. His hands were mere skin and bones. He was an Indian.
“Too hungry,” he murmured, “No come caribou. No come ptarmigan. No fish
in the river; no rabbits on the tundra!” He spread out his bony hands in
a gesture of despair.
“But you needn’t have killed him. Had you come to us we would have given
you meat, all you could use.” The girl’s face was frank and fearless, yet
there was a certain huskiness in her voice that to the sensitive ears of
the Indian betokened kindness.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “maybe you would. Yesterday we saw other reindeer
herd, north mebby ten miles. Want deer; ask man, big man, much whiskers;
say want food. Man said: ‘Get out!’ Want’a kill me if I not go quick. Bad
man, that one. We go way. Then see your herd. Say, take one deer. You
want to fight, then fight. Better to die by bullet than by hunger.”
“The man you saw,” said Marian, her heart sinking as she realized that he
must be a half day in the lead, “was Bill Scarberry. Yes, he is a mean
man. But see! Have you a cache? Some place where you can keep meat from
the wolves and wolverines?”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the Indian eagerly. “Ten miles. Diesa River, a
cabin.”
“How many deer must you have to keep you until game comes?”
“Mebby—mebby,” the Indian stared at her in astonishment, “Mebby two,
mebby three.”
“All right,” said Marian, “you have killed a fine doe. That was bad, but
I forgive you.” She held our her hand to grasp the native’s bony fingers.
“Now,” she said briskly, “since you have killed her, you may keep the
meat. Terogloona,” she turned to the Eskimo, “point out two young bucks,
the best we have. Tell him he may kill them and that he and his friends
may take them to their cabin.”
“I—I—” the Indian attempted to speak. Failing utterly, he turned and
walked a few steps away, then turning, struck straight away toward the
spot where the red and yellow campfire gleamed.
“That is his camp?” asked Marian.
Terogloona nodded silently.
“They will come for the meat, and will give us no further trouble?”
“_Eh-eh_” smiled the Eskimo. “The daughter of my master has acted wisely.
The man who starves, he is different. These reindeer,” he waved his arms
toward the herd, “they belong to my master and his daughter. When men are
not starving—yes. When men are starving—no. To the starving all things
belong. Bill Scarberry, he remember yet. Indians of Little Sticks, they
never forget.”
As Marian turned to retrace her steps to camp, she chanced to glance up
at the other camp where, but an hour before, she had seen the flash of
the purple flame. It was closer than she thought. The flash of flame was
gone, but she was sure she caught the outlines of a tent; surer still
that she saw a solitary figure atop a nearby knoll. Sitting as if on
watch, this solitary man held a rifle across his knees.
“I wonder why he is there?” she said to herself, “I wonder why they are
following us?”
“Oh,” she breathed as she walked toward camp, “it’s so tantalizing, that
purple flame and all! I have half a notion to take Terogloona, as I did
with that Indian, and march right up to them and demand the meaning of
their mysterious actions!”
As if intending to turn this thought into action at once, she stopped and
turned about. To her surprise, as she looked toward the crest of the
hill, she saw the solitary watcher was gone.
“Oh, well,” she sighed, “we have no real reason for invading their camp.
We’ve no proof that they’ve ever done us any harm; except, perhaps the
time that Patsy saw the blood-trail and the antler marks in the snow. It
seems that it must have been our deer, but we never could prove it.”
Glancing away at a more distant hill-crest, she was surprised at the
picture revealed there.
The moon, just rising from behind the hill, threw out in bold relief the
broad-spreading antlers of a magnificent creature of the wilderness.
“Old Omnap-puk!” said Marian. “What do you think of that? We have
traveled five days, and yet we are still in the company of the mysterious
camp-followers of the purple flame and old Omnap-puk, the
caribou-reindeer who has haunted the outskirts of our camp so long.
“I suppose,” she said thoughtfully, “that I should tell Terogloona to
have the Indians kill Omnap-puk. That would save one of our reindeers,
and besides, if we let him live, who knows but that at some critical
moment he may rush in and assume the leadership of our herd and lead them
to disaster, or lose them to us forever. I have heard of that happening
with horses and cattle. Why not with reindeer? And yet,” she sighed, “I
can’t quite make up my mind to do it. He is such a wonderful fellow!”
The time was to come, and that very soon, when she was to rejoice because
of this decision.